However, “South Korea’s government has decided that too many people are going to college, writes Fred Hiatt in the Post. More than 40 percent of new college graduates can’t find jobs.

President Lee Myung-bak is “working to restore the luster of a high school diploma as a stopping point for some and to establish a vocational track for others,” Hiatt writes.

The government also is investing in vocational schools designed to put young people on a career track without going to college. “Reckless entrance into college,” Lee has said, is “bringing huge losses to households and the country alike.”

Here’s the graph showing the U.S. dip in graduates and the Korean spike. Notice that Mexico has caught up with Italy: 20 percent of young adults hold a college degree.

Where I’m from, in Romania, almost everybody goes to college; the value of most universities has dropped so much that it’s no longer something special to get admitted, and this doesn’t really go a lot of good for anybody. A balance has to be found between the quality and severeness of education and the need for specialized graduates.

Community College Spotlight is written by Joanne Jacobs. It provides a forum for discussion and debate about America’s community colleges, which are home to nearly half of all college students in the U.S.
Views expressed on the blog are those of Joanne Jacobs and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of The Hechinger Report or the Hechinger Institute.